Update: Fisher Revisited

Oh dear. Nicholas Wirz, Northumbria’s solicitor, isn’t getting any love from his fellow legal practitioners. Indeed they seem to totally contradict Wirz’s own interpretation of the Fisher judicial review, the one that he lost, and at the same time these real legal eagles agree with our own explanation.

Ground 1 of the Fisher judgement related to comparator and the use of Police Salary, the high court judge quashed the PMAB determination for the reasons that the comparison between injured and uninjured earnings was not analysed sufficiently and there was no rationale as to why police officer salary was not used.Clarification is provided by this judgement that police officer salary would be the correct comparator where the former officer has only one qualifying injury and is otherwise healthy

Sarah Simcock writes in UK Police Law Blog, a blog of the Serjeant’s Inn barrister Chambers, that it isn’t about being otherwise healthy as Wirz told the NWEF conference, and it clearly isn’t about always using the police salary as the uninjured comparator – like we say, someone could have been underemployed as a police officer and their uninjured earning capacity can be a lot higher. We used an example of a maxillofacial surgeon.

And if you read all of what Sarah and her fellow professionals of barristers and lawyers actual think … it’s fair to say you will decide that our explanation is closer to the truth.

The Fisher decision does not obligate an SMP or PMAB to use the officer’s police earnings prior to injury in all cases, it merely stresses that they must form part of the consideration or act as a starting point. If there are good reasons in a particular case for a departure from that level of earnings it is permissible, but it must be objectively justified on the facts of the particular case and on the evidence available.

What is crucial is that there must be sufficient reasons provided to justify a decision in relation to the level of a particular officer’s uninjured earning capacity.

The recent decision of the High Court upon an application for judicial review of a Police Medical Appeals Board (‘PMAB’) decision in the case of R (Fisher) v (1) Chief Constable of Northumbria (2) PMAB [2017] EWHC 455 (Admin) highlights the pitfalls in the assessment of a former officer’s uninjured earning capacity when reviewing the level of an injury pension under regulation 37 of the Police (Injury Benefit) Regulations 2006.

We think people should stop listening to Nicholas Wirz. Northumbria could save millions by paying him to stay at home in a locked broom cupboard.

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9 thoughts on “Update: Fisher Revisited”

The sad thing is that this Wirz fellow is not alone in his dislike and resentment of police officers and in particular injured ones disabled for the rest of there lives. There are HR bods, so called solicitors and medics up and down the country who have little or no understanding of the demands of policing yet they sit in judgement of vulnerable injured cops and play them like puppets. These people are simply criminals who take money to lie about the injurys of cops, I know because they did it to me. Im a simple kind of guy with Complex PTSI and I think there are laws and regs to be followed not abused by WIRZ and his corrupt chums. I know the answer but do they ever stop and think of the damage they cause to some very vunerable people. These people who know who they are have blood on there hands they came close to killing me.

In a very recent Northumbria medical report used to reduce an IOD from band 4 to 0%, Broome, yet again misquoted out of all context the Fisher Judgement. Clearly these reports are being written by Wirz himself.
It is mind boggling that Wirz is allowed to remain in employment after such failures in his legal role. What an incompetent man! In the current National climate and in consideration of the pressure to the public service in light of the recent events in our country, I am perplexed that police forces employ the likes of Wirz. Surely their finances would be better re-deployed in employing more ‘fit for purpose’ police officers ,than civilian nitwits . In addition, do these serving officers who are injured on duty realise what they are in for? Whether they are injured in high profile media events this week , or domestic local incidents next week, the outcome is the same….their names will be forgotten by ‘Spider pig’ May and the general public within a week!

Wirz sees the law as an instrument to be played, and the tunes which emerge as his own compositions. He approaches the law in the way an ape might approach a piano.

Eric Morcambe once hilariously told Andre Previn, “I’m playing all the right notes—but not necessarily in the right order.”

That could be your epitaph Mr Wirz, but I fear you would not even qualify for that lowly accolade. Whenever you spout your own peculiar and biased view of the police injury benefit regulations you are not even playing the right notes and the tunes you play should be on a fiddle – your instrument of choice.

According to the “College” of policing, WIRZ, “is recognised nationally as an expert in police pension law”, so much for the judgement of the “college2 his backer! WIRZ should have stuck to his subject of first qualification modern languages and his initial employment as a banker, yes I did say banker!